Customer relations, that is. It never ceases to amaze me how some wineries do it right. Last week was a good example. We'd tasted the new TablasCreek wines and my group really liked them. Had orders for 5 cs worth, some of which were rather limited allocations. I e-mailed Darren to see if my limits could be stretched a bit. Within 15 min, I got a reply from JasonHaas that he knew some people in high places at TCV who could probably help me out!! That same day, I got in the mail a nice postcard from SamBilbro/Idlewild that crush was complete and the fires were out & he was doing some stocktaking and just wanted to thank my group for their support over the yrs. Just out of the blue. Folks like these two; Carlisle/Ridge/Ryme/LimerickLane/Marietta/EdmundsStJohn/Lagier-Meredith/Forlorn-Hope...there are others...all know that that little touch can make a difference. Just BasicMarketing101.

It never ceases to amaze me how some wineries don't get it. I few weeks ago, I had a WashState Syrah that really impressed me. I sent the owner/winemaker my grandoise TN and my compliments on how good a Syrah it was. I was going to order some of his other wines to try. His response...nada. Needless to say....I wrote this wnry off. Same story a few months before w/ a new wnry whose wine I rather liked. Again no response.

I do try to cut some of these wineries some slack. Sometimes it's some low-level office functionary who intercepts all incoming e-mails and doesn't bother to knock them upstairs. I can understand. But the owner should make it clear to them that when someone reaches out to them, they should do more than just add the e-mail to the mailing list.